Duplicate categories how to make sure I don't get penalized for this
-
Hi there
How would I go about fixing duplicate categories?
My products sell in multiple category areas and some overlap the other - how can I go about making sure that I don't get penalised for this? Each category and content is unique but my advisors offer different tools and insights.
-
Thanks for your response Patrick! This has helped alot!!! So clear! Thanks for going into more details about the canonical tags - as this part was confusing! lol
Thanks I have set it to www as the preferred
With regards to the canonical tags - should I use this for ALL pages? or just the category pages? Or just pages I feel have similar content? Would it be just safe to add it to every page?
-
Hi Justin
When it comes to canonical tags, it's a best practice. I just like to apply them so that each page "owns" the content on that page in the eyes of the search engine. Especially when some content is on more than page, like a portion of your staff's profiles - I would definitely put a canonical tag on the psychic's profile pages since some of their bios appear on other pages.
The reason I brought up the non www. URL is because if for some reason someone links to the non www. version of your site or a page on your site, it's going to return a 404 error like you are seeing. You'll notice that if you goto http://www.zenory.com/profile/psychic-ginny it automatically redirects to where it is supposed to go. This is just to cover your bases in case there is a linking error somewhere.
Since your site is using "www." - I would use that version. You'll see under Set Your Preferred Domain in Google Webmaster Tools that they recommend staying consistent in your preferred domain and how your site is set up.
Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions or comments! Good luck!
-
Hi Patrick
Thanks alot for your response, and sorry for my vague explanation.
Yes, you are correct - I was concerned that my staff are listed in the categories section as duplicate. Every page is going to be unique in content. Thanks for the heads up! Should I apply the canonical tag for every page? And could you please explain the non-www url? I see there is a settings in WMT that I need to apply - under the add your preferred version should I set this up to - Display URLs as http://bit.ly/1yhz96v
-
Hi Justin
I am not entirely sure I am following, but are you worried about your staff appearing on multiple categories? From what I can, that's not an issue - you have unique content to the page and service. The list of psychics shouldn't be an issue.
I would check your canonical tag situation, though. I noticed the site doesn't have any, just a heads up.
Also, your non www. URLs don't work - here is an example.
Let me know if I am understanding!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Besides description and design optimization, is there any other main factor that we can influence to get better App Store rankings?
Hi there! I do love SEO, the cracking Web Search engine, but when it comes to other Google's search engines like Youtube and Apps Store it's an unknown field for me.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Gaston Riera
So, i'm diving into App Store Optimization, ASO. This is my question: Besides the text and the design in the description of the app, is there any other factor that we can manipulate or influence?(such as linkbuilding, social media or alien magic hehe). Thanks a lot!
GR.0 -
Spamming Backlinks - doesn't seem to be detrimental enough?
Hi, We have noticed sites such as http://www.rattanfurnitureoutlet.co.uk & http://www.supremerattanfurniture.co.uk/ have huge numbers of what appear to be spam like and invaluable backlinks yet they have both maintained a great ranking for their search terms despite this. We would like to know why, does the good outweigh the bad so to speak?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | birdmarketing0 -
HELP! My website has been penalized - what did I do wrong?
I have been working on a website Zing.co.nz and have made a sub domain blog.zing.co.nz. The website is for a company that is yet to launch, so I have been boosting traffic by writing blog posts about the topic (loans) on the subdomain. I pushed some traffic to the actual website too. We were climbing the rankings for our brand name but have all of a sudden started to drop. The domain authority was something like 0.9 and has dropped to 0.3. (Using SEO Spyglass) The blog was somewhere similar, but has dropped to 0.0!!! Please help in anyway you can. These changes have happened within the last 48 hours. Zing.co.nz Blog.zing.co.nz
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Startupfactory0 -
Ever seen this tactic when trying to get rid of bad backlinks?
I'm trying to get rid of a Google penalty, but one of the URLS is particularly bizarre. Here's the penalized site: http://www.travelexinsurance.com. One of the external links Google cited as not being natural that links to the penalized site is: http://content.onlineagency.com/index.aspx?site=6599&tide=769006&last=3111516 In the backlink profile of the penalized site, there are about 100 different backlinks pointing to www.travelexinsurance.com from content.onlineagency.com/... So when I visit http://content.onlineagency.com/index.aspx?site=6599&tide=769006&last=3111516 it actually is displaying content from http://www.starmandstravel.com/787115_6599.htm, which you can see after clicking the "Home" button. That company is a legit travel agency who I assume knows nothing about content.onlineagency.com and is not involved in whatever is going on. And that's the case for every link from content.onlineagency.com. So I'm just wondering if someone can help me understand what sort of tactic content.onlineagency.com is using. One of my predecessors I fear used some black hat tactics. I'm wondering if this is a remnant of that effort.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Patrick_G0 -
Goddady's Domain Masking and 301's
I have a client who's 7 domains and single website (instantpages®) exists within the clutches of GoDaddy. They own 6 kewyord rich domain names that 301 redirect with masking to the main branded domain. In effect, what this provides is the ability to add a title tag and meta description for a keyword rich domain name that displays content through an iframe. So really it's not duplicate content but this practice sets off my spidey sense that this is not a best practice regarding SEO. I want to suggest for the client to drop the idea of masking and do a straight 301 redirect to main branded domain. I'm sure that is fine but these domains are Not similar variations but actually vary widely: massage-city.com, city-massage.com, city-acupuncture.com, acupuncture-city.com, city-chiropractic.com, chiropractic-city.com etc ---- Doesn't Google frown on redirecting 6 domains to a single domain if they vary widely? Words of wisdom appreciated.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | superZj0 -
Rel author and duplicate content
I have a question if a page who a im the only author, my web will duplicate content with the blog posts and the author post as they are the same. ¿what is your suggestion in that case? thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | maestrosonrisas0 -
Does Anybody Know Who Interflora's SEO Company Is (Or Was)?
In light of the recent penalty put on the Interflora site, does anybody know who their SEO company is or was (or if they were doing it in house)? Also, do you think SEO companies that are responsible for things like this should be named and shamed?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jasarrow0 -
Google turned me down, don't know why...
Hello, I'm experiencing decreasing on some of my keywords. I'm aware of some things which could be responsible for it. So I'd like to asi you, if my thoughts are right, and what to do with it. 1. I put backlinks leading onto my website. Those backlinks are on website I also own (they are on the same server). But nothing happened. Than I put other backlikns on this webiste. Those links also led to webistes I own. So could Google "punnished" those websites I'm linking to? 2. I offered my content to another website, which has a higher authority. This content had been published on my website weeks ago, I put it on this (another site). Co could Google punnished me for "duplicate" content? 3. In the past, we outsorced our SEO, and the company which was responsible for our SEO put backlinks leading to our website almost everywhere, I mean, those websites, they put links leading to our webistes fos focused on almost everything but our field (finance). But everything seemed to be fine, till now 4. Couple of days ago, I put our RSS on many RSS agregators and put our webiste on many catalogs. My website URL is www.penizenavic.cz Could you help me out? 🙂 Thanks a lot Petr
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | petr.rozkosny0